Battery Tender of DeLand charged about future

Wednesday

Aug 6, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By ANTHONY DeFEOanthony.defeo@news-jrnl.com

DELAND — A nationally-distributed manufacturer of battery chargers and other electronic parts is celebrating 50 years in business in West Volusia.DelTran — originally Deltona Transformer Corp. — makes the Battery Tender line of chargers and lithium batteries, along with a slew of other power-related accessories. On Aug. 1, the company began its 50th fiscal year in operation. The company is one of the largest presences at DeLand’s Airport Industrial Park. Its campus at 801 International Speedway Blvd. is visible from the highway on the outskirts of town. “My dad started the company. It was started as a transformer manufacturer — nothing really to do with battery chargers,” said CEO Michael L. Prelec, son the late Michael G. Prelec, the company’s founder.The company originally manufactured lighting ballasts and transformers out of a facility in Deltona. In 1981, DelTran relocated to its current DeLand facility. “I got into fishing and needed battery chargers for the trolling motor-type applications,” he said. “We started designing those here with our engineering staff. In around 1991, we developed the original Battery Tender.”Evin Prelec, daughter of the CEO and the company’s marketing director, said DelTran’s chargers are “smart” chargers designed to prevent motorcycle, car, boat and other batteries from going dead after sitting unused. The chargers also can detect when a battery is fully charged and stop feeding current to it. “The ultimate overall idea is it will recognize when the battery will be charged,” she said. “Once it recognizes the battery has absorbed 100 percent of a charge, it will drop down to a maintenance mode. (Other) trickle chargers keep pushing a charge into a battery and it will keep charging and damage the battery.”Evin Prelec said the family-run business currently employs about 50 people. All of the company’s design and engineering takes place at the DeLand facility. While Prelec said many of the company’s products are assembled in China, some of DelTran’s larger chargers are built in-house. In addition to its own brands, the company manufacturers products for several private-label brands for firms like AAA Auto Club and Harley-Davidson. Michael Prelec said the company sells more than a million chargers each year. “We’ve been doing double-digit growth for the last 10 years,” he said. “I think with people plugging in their phones, their iPads and everything in every day, they’re used to plugging a charger in. Now, when they get off their motorcycle, rather than just letting it sit and die, they plug it in.”The company’s chargers range in price from $39.95 to more than $600 for some of its industrial chargers. Its products are carried by Wal-Mart, O’Reilly Auto Parts and other national retailers.“It’s a great success story. When you’re talking about family-owned businesses, that’s the definition of a family-owned business that’s persisted over the years,” said Nick Conte Jr., executive director of the DeLand Area Chamber of Commerce. “They found an amazing opportunity and now they’ve just exploded. They’re pretty much all over the world,” he said. “They’ve got great potential to go even farther as more electric cars come online.”